Yellow Leaves, Grey Water, Blue Jackets

This is my "Capture the Fall" independent film project, titled Yellow Leaves, Grey Water, Blue Jackets.  I really like the way it turned out.

I filmed this all on my dad's iPhone, and edited it in iMovie.  The music is from freemusicarchive.org.

Filming was so much fun.  I stopped by Heyser Farms and the local park on the way home from a birthday party.  Dad just pulled over, handed me his phone, and I filmed a few seconds of fall scenery.  

The really fun part started at home, when I got my sisters to help.  They were all too eager to be filmed raking leaves, though Suzanne originally wanted to go in bare feet and no jacket.  Not only did I get a few nice shots of raking leaves, but they kept suggesting new ideas that eventually became the backbone of my project.  Katie wanted to be filmed climbing a tree, Suzanne wanted to be filmed jumping into a pile of leaves, and I suggested the shot where Katie runs down the hill onto the swingset.  When Suzanne jumped into the pile of leaves, I stopped recording - only to have Katie jump in after her!  Then Suzanne started throwing leaves, and I just had to film it.  The original clip is 40 seconds long, but I only kept a few seconds in the video.

Katie helped me film a few staged shots, and then it was time to get editing.

iMovie was really weird, and it seemed to be made for a less advanced editor than a high school film student - which was annoying - but eventually I got it to work.  The simplicity of the project kept the dumbing down of the program from being a problem.

I ended up having to cut out a few clips that I was going to have, just to fit into the time limit and because they didn't fit the overall theme of the video.

Music was annoying at first, as ccmixter was ridiculously unhelpful, but freemusicarchive was much nicer for finding wordless classical music.  I like the bittersweet tone to this song, and the piano is lovely.

I also made a short blooper reel for this video, mostly involving their leaf fight, but also a couple of mishaps from filming.  Included is a guitar song under the "comedy" tag of freemusicarchive.

Enjoy both videos!